Jim Butcher - White Night

I'd called him the day after the battle and tried to talk to him, but he'd remained reticent, remote. I'd told him I was worried about him, after blowing that much energy. He'd hung up on me. He'd cut short two more calls since.

So, being as how I am a smart and sensitive guy who respects his brother's feelings, I was tailing him to find out what the hell he was trying so hard not to talk to me about. This way, I was sparing him all the effort and trouble of telling me about it by finding out all on my own. Like I said, I'm sensitive. And thoughtful. And maybe a little stubborn.

Thomas wasn't being very careful. I would have expected him to move around the city like a long-tailed cat at a rocking chair convention, but he sort of trudged along, fashionable in his dark slacks and loose, deep crimson shirt, his hands in his pockets, his hair hiding his face most of the time.

Even so, he attracted more than a little feminine attention. He was like a walking, talking cologne commercial, except that even silent and standing he was making women look over their shoulders at him, while coyly rearranging their hair.

He finally stalked into the Park Tower, and went into a trendy little boutique-slash-coffee shop calling itself the Coiffure Cup. I checked a clock, and thought about following him in. I could see a few people inside, where a coffee bar backed up to the front window. A couple of fairly pretty girls were getting things set up behind the counter, but I couldn't see any more than that.

I found a spot where I could watch the door and loomed unobtrusively—which is easier than you'd think, even when you're as tall as I am. A couple of women whose hair and nails screamed "beautician" came in later. The boutique opened for business a few minutes after Thomas got there, and immediately began doing a brisk trade. A lot of evidently wealthy, terribly attractive, generally young women started coming and going.

It put me in a quandary. On the one hand, I didn't want anyone to get hurt because my brother had exerted himself so furiously on my behalf. On the other, I didn't particularly care to go in and find my brother lording it over a roomful of worshipful women like some dark god of lust and shadow.

I chewed on my lip for a while, and decided to go on in. If Thomas had… if he had become the kind of monster his family generally did, I owed it to him to try to talk some sense into him. Or pound it in. Whichever.

I pushed open the door to the Coiffure Cup and was immediately, pleasantly assaulted by the aroma of coffee. There was techno music playing, thumping bouncily and mindlessly positive. The front room contained the coffee bar, a few little tables, and a little podium next to a heavy curtain. Even as I came in, one of the young women behind the bar came out to me, gave me a bubbly, caf-feinated smile, and said, "Hi! Do you have an appointment?"

"No," I said, glancing back at the curtains.' "Um, I just need to talk to someone. One second."

"Sir," she said in protest, and tried to hurry into my path. My legs were longer. I gave her a smile and outdistanced her, pushing the curtain aside.

The techno music grew a little louder as I went through. The back room of the boutique smelled the way boutiques always do, of various tonsorial chemicals. A dozen styling stations, all in use, stood six on a side, marching up to a rather large and elaborate station on a little raised platform. At the base of the little platform was a pedicure station, and a young woman with a mud mask, and cucumber slices, and a body posture of blissful relaxation was lounging through a pedicure. On the other side, another young woman was under a dryer, reading a magazine, her expression heavy and relaxed with that postcoiffure glow. On the main chair on the platform, a deluxe number that leaned back to a custom shampoo sink, another young woman lay back with a blissful expression while having her hair washed.

By Thomas.

He was chatting with her amiably as he worked, and she was in the middle of a little laugh when I came in. He leaned down and said something in her ear, and though I couldn't hear the substance of it, it came across in an unmistakable just-us-girls kind of tone, and she laughed again, replying in a similar manner.

Thomas laughed and turned away, practically prancing over to a tray of… styling implements, I supposed. He came back with a towel and, I swear to God, a dozen bobby pins held in his lips. He rinsed her hair and started pinning.

"Sir!" protested the coffee girl, who had followed me into the room.

Everyone stopped and looked at me. Even the woman with the cucumbers over her eyes took one of them off and peered at me.

Thomas froze. His eyes widened to the size of hand mirrors. He swallowed, and the bobby pins fell out of his mouth.

All the women looked back and forth between us, and there was an immediate buzz of whispers and quiet talks.

"You have got to be kidding me," I said.

"O-oh," Thomas said. "Ah-ree."

One of the stylists glanced back and forth between us and said, "Thomas." (She pronounced it Toe-moss.) "Who is your friend?"

Friend. Oy vey. I rubbed at the bridge of my nose with one hand. I was never going to get away from this one. Not if I lived to be five hundred.

Thomas and I sat down at a table over cups of coffee.

"This?" I asked him without preamble. "This is your mysterious job? This is the moneymaking scam?"

"It was cosmetology school first," Thomas said. He spoke in a French accent so thick that it barely qualified as English. "And night work as a security guard in a warehouse where no one else ever showed up, to pay for it."

I rubbed at my nose again. "And then… this ? Here I'm thinking you've created your own batch of personal thralls while running around as a hired killer or something, and… you're washing hair ?"

It was difficult to keep my voice quiet, but I made the effort. There were too many ears in that little place.

Thomas sighed. "Well. Yes. Washing, cutting, styling, dying. I do it all, baby."

"I'll bet." Then it hit me. "That's how you're feeding," I said. "I thought that took…"

"Sex?" Thomas asked. He shook his head. "Intimacy. Trust. And believe me, next to sex, washing and styling a woman's hair is about as intimate as you can get with her."

"You're still feeding on them," I said.

"It isn't the same, Harry. It isn't as dangerous—more like… sipping, I suppose, than taking bites. I can't take very much, or very quickly. But I'm here all day and it…" He shivered. "It adds up." He opened his eyes and met mine. "And there's no chance I'm going to lose control of myself. They're safe." He shrugged a shoulder. "They just enjoy it."

I watched the woman who'd been under the hair dryer come out, smile at Thomas, and pick up a cup of coffee on the way out. She looked… well, radiant, really. Confident. She looked like she felt sexy and beautiful, and it was quite pleasant to watch her move while she did.

Thomas watched her go with what I recognized as his look of quiet possession and pride. "They enjoy it a lot." He gave me one of his brief, swift grins. "I imagine there's a lot of husbands and boyfriends enjoying it, too."

"But they're addicted to it, I'd imagine."

He shrugged again. "Some, maybe. I try to spread myself around as much as I can. It isn't a perfect solution—"

"But it's the one you've got," I said. I frowned. "What happens when you try to wash somebody's hair and it turns out that they're in love? Protected?"

"True love isn't as common as you'd think," Thomas said. "Especially among people rich enough to afford me and superficial enough to think that it is money well spent."

"But when they do show?" I asked.

"That's why I've got all the hired help, man. I know what I'm doing."